SBA reports Nebraska lending close to another record (AUDIO)

Nebraska businesses will likely borrow another record amount from Small Business Administration backed loans this year.

The SBA district office in Omaha reports that a total of $137 million has been loaned to more than 400 companies with a quarter left in the federal fiscal year. SBA backed a record $153 million in loans last year.

Michael Foutch, a spokesman in the Omaha office, says the significance in this year’s numbers rests in the incentives offered. Foutch points out that last year federal economic stimulus dollars allowed SBA to guarantee 90% of the loans given to small businesses. Normally, the SBA guarantees to a lending institution that it will pay-off 75-85% of a SBA loan should a business default.

The SBA states its loan activity last quarter generated 300 jobs. Of the 102 loans issued in that quarter, 48 went to existing small businesses and 54 went to start-up companies.

Foutch says it’s even more impressive to look back over the past 18 months.

“Almost 900 small businesses in Nebraska have been approved for a SBA loans for a total of almost a quarter of a billion dollars in loan volume,” Foutch tells Nebraska Radio Network. “And together over that past 18 months, those small businesses that have just gotten SBA loans have created 3,300 new jobs.”

Foutch has little doubt that the SBA will see another record by the time the federal fiscal year ends at the end of September.

“As long as we’ve got the confidence of our lenders to loan to these small businesses; these small businesses want to get out there and create jobs, create products and services that people need and that our office keeps pushing, yeah, I think we’re going to reach that,” Foutch says.